The Stained Cloak
by Shinobinator
Summary: How Ser Jaime Lannister became the Kingslayer. These characters and themes do, and will always, belong to the great George RR martin and I could never claim them for my own


Midday seemed like dusk. The sky was a dark grey from the smoke. The odor was pungent and sharp, the scent of burning wood and flesh. Monstrous flames rose from the place where the royal stables once stood. Screams of dying men echoed horribly off the walls of the Throne room. The silence within the room, however, seemed almost unnatural to the young Kingsguard. It seemed ill placed in all the chaos.

Jaime shifted slightly in his white armour and it rattled, louder than it usually would. The king instantly winced at the sound in his paranoid state. Sweat trickled from beneath his crown onto his pale brow. His fingers were trembling, although Jaime could not tell whether that was due to fear, anger or simply…madness.

* * *

The young lord of Casterly Rock had been fifteen when Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard laid the greatsword, Dawn upon his shoulders. It was there that he knelt as a squire to Ser Sumner Crakehall and rose as a knight: Ser Jaime Lannister. The white knight had smiled as a proud father would, but Jaime had no way of knowing what that truly looked like.

Jaime had had his first taste of true battle that day. The ground was stained with blood. Corpses lay smoking slightly as the warmth of life faded from their bodies. Jaime had felt his own skin burn with the rush of war. The battle of the Kingswood, the people called it, the few who knew of it. But he knew it as day of his first kill. His hand had shaken as he felt the ease by which his sword pierced the man's armour and sliced through his chest. He had repeated the act a dozen more times that day. Sweat had dripped from his brow and blood from his soiled sword as he knelt before Ser Arthur that day.

His sword had tasted the blood of many dozens more since that day and today he stood in armour much like that of the man who had knighted him all those moons past. He was now that which every lad who lifted a sword aspired to become, that which every man in armour envied. He had done in a year what Ser Barristan the Bold took eight years to achieve and that which most men had the misfortune to only dream of. Knighted and given a white cloak in the same year: some would say Jaime had been blessed by the Warrior himself. But the truth was far less poetic. Even if it were, it was a far more somber song.

* * *

Cersei Lannister was what every song would depict as a maiden fair. Her hair was spun gold, her skin as smooth as silk, and her eyes green and vibrant. Her voice was as sweet as summerwine and her laugh a song in itself. Jaime was a man who could have any woman in the realm. He was heir to Casterly Rock, one of the finest knights in the kingdoms and had won many a lady's heart with his green eyes and blond hair. But he wanted none but one. Nobody had ever completely understood the relationship of the Lannister twins. And Jaime knew that nobody ever would. She was more than his sister. She was his love, his soul mate, his haven. They were two halves of a whole. He didn't care for titles or lands or glory. All he needed was a sword in his hand and Cersei by his side.

"Father is taking me to King's Landing," she had said, tears glistening in her eyes. She clasped Jaime's hand as if she were holding on to a dream. "He means for me to be one of the queen's maids-in-waiting."

Jaime's spirit crumbled as he bid his sister goodbye. He felt childish as he yearned for her in an adolescent fashion. Her green eyes carried a longing he recognized as his own. In that moment he knew nothing of honour, loyalty, duty or anything else that was expected of him. It seemed unimportant. All he knew was that he had to be closer to her.

It was then that Jaime Lannister made a choice that would forever haunt him and that he could never undo.

* * *

He remembered the ceremony that day at Harrenhal. What seemed like the whole realm had gathered to attend the tourney Lord Whent had arranged in honour of the king. The highest honour that a knight could receive had fallen upon Jaime Lannister's shoulders at the hands of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Gerold Hightower himself. The Hall of a hundred hearths had erupted with applause as Jaime knelt as a mere knight and then rose to join his six new brothers-at-arms. But not Lord Tywin. The seat of the Hand of the King had been empty that day. Tywin Lannister had stayed away from Harrenhal, disgusted at the son who had shamed him and the heir he had lost.

"A glorified sentry!" he had roared, the night before he had stormed back to Casterly Rock. Lord Tywin was not called the Great Lion of Lannister for nothing. "You are willing to surrender your title and sacrifice the honour of your House for a white rag and the task of guarding the King as he takes his midnight shit?"

His father's words shook the room as well as Jaime's nerves. Choosing each word with care, he managed a response. "There is much honour in being a Kingsgua-"

"Do not speak to me of honour, boy!" Lord Tywin shook with anger. "Are you so naïve that you don't see the ploy that this is? Aerys means to slap me in the face and humiliate me before the whole realm by stealing my heir from under my nose and you mean to assist him in this insult?"

Jaime knew he was not the only heir to Casterly Rock and though, hypothetically, it would have been wise to point this out, he dared not mention his brother Tyrion in his father's current state of mind. Instead he stood there with his head bowed, and swallowed his father's bitter words.

"The mad fool wants nothing more than to dishonour me and ruin my House to dust, and you have done nothing but hand him exactly what he wants," Lord Tywin continued.

The old lion walked over to his desk and poured himself a glass of wine. Though his back was to Jaime, the latter could imagine the look of disdain that he must have worn as he said those poison words, "It sounds like a bad jest: the sons of the mighty Tywin Lannister, one a cripple and the other a fool. You have disappointed me, Jaime. Now get out of my sight."


End file.
